Material shearing machines have long been used to process strip material in mass production or manufacturing systems. Shearing machines can be used in a cut-to-length production line to shear a strip material prior to an operation such as, for example, roll forming a strip material to produce a finished product. Shearing machines that can efficiently and accurately shear or cut a strip material within a specific tolerance can substantially minimize the need for secondary operations (e.g., reshearing and/or deburring the strip material, etc.) to produce a conforming product, thereby reducing labor and scrap costs, improving cut quality, and improving down-line secondary processing.
Some shearing machines include a movable upper blade and a fixed lower blade that cooperate to shear or cut a strip material. However, the accuracy and quality of the cut can be affected by a lateral clearance or offset distance (e.g., a horizontal distance or distance along the direction of travel of the strip material relative to the blades) between the upper blade and the lower blade when the blades contact the material being cut. A proper lateral clearance or offset distance between the upper and lower blades produces a square, smooth cut leading to improved accuracy and quality of an end product. Additionally, a proper lateral clearance between the upper and lower blades requires less force to shear or cut the material, thereby resulting in longer blade life.
A proper lateral clearance between the upper and lower blades depends on the thickness of the strip material that the shear press is to process. Thus, to produce a smooth, quality cut, shearing machines that process strip materials having various thicknesses require a lateral clearance (e.g., a horizontal or offset distance between the upper and lower blades) adjustment for each of the different strip material thicknesses. Some known shearing machines provide manual lateral clearance adjustment mechanisms (e.g., a slide and screw configuration) to adjust the lateral clearance between the upper and lower blades. The lateral clearance is typically adjusted prior to a production run by an operator who, for example, utilizes a look-up table or chart to determine the proper lateral clearance required to cut a strip material having a particular thickness.
In some instances, however, the strip material (e.g., strip material from a roll of material) can have different thicknesses along its length, for example, when processing the strip material using a hand fed press, when changing between a first roll of strip material and a second roll of strip material, when production runs have a variety of strip materials with different thicknesses to be sheared in small quantities, etc. Thus, the thickness of the strip material can vary between each section of strip material to be cut. Shearing machines that utilize a manual lateral clearance adjustor require an operator to constantly measure the thickness of the strip material to properly adjust the lateral clearance, which can be time consuming and limit the production of the manufacturing process. Therefore, for optimum part production, a strip material that varies in thickness requires a lateral clearance adjustment between the upper and the lower blades for each length of strip material to be cut by the shearing press.
Other known shearing machines provide semi-automated lateral clearance adjustment mechanisms to eliminate the need to manually adjust the lateral clearance for each length of material to be sheared or cut. However, these known shearing machines provide adjustment mechanisms that require an initial set up to properly position measuring devices and/or mechanisms that measure or determine the thickness of the strip material to properly set the lateral clearance. This initial set up can be prone to inaccuracies and operator error, leading to improper lateral clearance adjustments.